How those ingredients are selected, prepared and combined, however, opens a host of possibilities for brewers -- and a whole world of styles for beer drinkers.

"Brewing is pretty much a creative science -- and I love it," said Loretta Montgomery, an occasional homebrewer who lives in Gunbarrel.

I met Montgomery during a recent Brew-U seminar presented by Twisted Pine Brewing Co. president Bob Baile at the Boulder-based brewery. The three-hour course covers a bit of beer history, the brewing process, an introduction to various beer styles (along with a guided tasting) and a discussion on ingredient selection. During the class I attended, Baile finished up with an extended question-and-answer session and a tour of the brewery.

The $75 cost includes the seminar, a course packet to take home, beer samples and happy-hour pricing in the Twisted Pine Ale House for the remainder of the year. Attendance is limited to 20 people per session, and Baile plans to offer the Brew-U class once a month, with the next class scheduled for March 23 during Colorado Craft Beer Week (March 18-24).

Montgomery enrolled in Brew-U because she wanted to learn more about the brewing process and how a professional production brewery works, in part to help further her own brewing efforts and perhaps even tackle her first all-grain batch of homebrew.

The class "showed me the tip of the iceberg with regard to varieties," she said. "I had no idea about the differences in the grains, for example, and how much that can affect the type of beer that you're trying to brew."

While the class leans more toward a Beer 101-style overview, it's highly informative and covers a variety of specifics that are of interest to beer novices and experienced brewers alike. Talking about beer in a broader context -- from ingredient selection and the brewing process to packaging, distribution and appreciation -- is very helpful in seeing how variables along the way affect the final product and underscores just how much variety is possible given so few base ingredients.

"We constructed the class in such a way," Baile said, "that whether you know nothing at all about beer but are interested, brew your own beer or even if you work in a brewery, you will learn something new."

He said the Brew-U class is part of the "evolution" of Twisted Pine, made possible by a recent expansion that nearly doubled the size of the brewery and a commitment to furthering beer appreciation. Twisted Pine plans to host many more events, classes and talks geared toward learning about beer.

"Beer lends itself so well to education," Baile said. "You can get into the history of beer, how it's made, the evolution of the ingredients and into some very scientific aspects if you want to.

"And obviously the more educated consumers are about beer, the smarter they're going to be about their choices and the more likely they are to pick up craft beer -- which is my sole mission."

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